dead horse ranch state park

24 02 2018

Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Arizona

The park’s unique name begins with the Ireys family, who came to Arizona from Minnesota looking for a ranch to buy in the late 1940s. At one of the ranches they discovered a large dead horse lying by the road. After two days of viewing ranches, Dad Ireys asked the kids which ranch they liked the best. The kids said, “the one with the dead horse, dad!” The Ireys family chose the name Dead Horse Ranch and later, in 1973, when Arizona State Parks acquired the park, the Ireys made retaining the name a condition of sale.

We’re parked in site #66, an inside-the-loop site on the Red-Tail Hawk loop. There are about 30 sites around this oval loop, another 25 sites on the next Coopers Hawk loop and 15 on the furthest tent-only Blackhawk loop. Views from the Red-Tail and Coopers Hawk loops are best, but would provide less shade and probably more wind than the lower Quail loop of about 45 sites. PARK MAP All RV sites provide water and electric with two dump stations available near the park entrance. There are 20 or more OTA TV channels from Flagstaff or on repeaters out of Prescott. T-Mobile is a full 4G LTE. The dark, quiet evening is a welcome change from the in-city locations we’ve been at so far. But, with temps continuing to fall into the 30’s we’re only here one night before continuing south to the Valley of the Sun. More from Apache Junction…